Ancient Egypt for KidsFestivals

Egyptian Calendar of Feasts and Offerings: The Egyptian Calendar
of Feasts and Offerings listed
many festivals planned throughout the year. Some were
national festivals, like the New Year Festival, the Raising
of the Sky Festival, and the Festival of the Potter's Wheel.
Most were local festivals. A town might hold 30-50 festivals
each year. Some festivals lasted more than one day. With so
many festivals, it's not surprising that some overlapped.

Festival Activity: Besides funerals, daily rites, and
other religious activities, priests were responsible for local festivals. Festivals were held joyously. They were filled with high-spirited attendance. There were people selling food and souvenirs. There were banners and gaiety and music and laughter. The center of the celebration was the statue of the god, carried by the priests, in parade style, up and down the streets of the town or city,
sometimes moving the statue from one temple to another, and
retracing their route with a new statue of a different god. The priests wore bird and animal masks. Around them, female musicians would shake rattles.
Along festival routes, other priests could be found at the
bark shrines, the small shrines set up to honor specific
gods. These priests were available as oracles to interpret
dreams of individuals for a small fee, while waiting for the
parade to pass, again and again.

Reversion of Offerings: People brought
so much food as offerings to the temples during the
festivals that a ceremony began to be incorporated into the
festivals known as the reversion of offerings. All the extra
food brought to the temples was redistributed to the mass of
people attending this special ceremony.